St. Mary's ousts St. Paul's, 6-4

With his team holding a two-goal lead at halftime of yesterday's Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference tournament quarterfinal, St. Paul's coach Mitch Whiteley issued a warning.

"St. Mary's has come back in the second half against a lot of teams this year," Whiteley told his team just before the start of the third quarter. "Don't let it happen to us."

Easier said than done.

The third-ranked and fourth-seeded Saints scored all four goals of the second half to leave Weems Whalen field with a 6-4 victory and a semifinal date with No. 1 Loyola Friday at 5 p.m. at UMBC Stadium.

Boys' Latin, a 6-4 winner over Calvert Hall yesterday, will play Gilman at 7 p.m. at UMBC in the other semifinal.

The winners of the two games will meet the next Friday at 7 p.m. at UMBC for the MIAA championship.

"At halftime, I told our kids that

20 minutes [the length of each half] is a long time," said St. Mary's coach Jim Moorhead, whose team trailed 4-2 at intermission. "In the second half, they really pushed themselves and showed they wanted desperately to win."

The Saints (11-3) outshot the Crusaders 7-2 in the third quarter and scored three goals in a span of 1:14 to take a 5-4 lead with 31 seconds left in the period.

Senior midfielder Todd Vizcarrondo started the spree on a feed from senior attackman Kevin Gattie (three assists) for an extra-man goal with 1:45 left in the quarter.

The tying goal came 34 seconds later when junior midfielder Justin Bowman scooped a loose ball in front of the St. Paul's goal and stuffed it in the net before goalie Sean Keenan could react.

Junior attackman Dan Collins took a feed from Bowman 40 seconds later and bounced a shot past Keenan for the go-ahead goal.

"We changed our formation a little bit against their zone and started to hit some guys in the open seams," said Moorhead. "We were more aggressive and we took some good shots and they went in."

Vizcarrondo scored the only goal of the fourth quarter with 1:56 left in the game for the final margin.

"It just wasn't our year," said Whiteley. "We didn't get any breaks

-- or make any breaks for ourselves -- and in the second half, we just couldn't put the ball in the goal."

St. Mary's goalie Jim Brown (12 saves) stopped three point-blank shots in the fourth quarter when the Saints were protecting a one-goal lead.

The loss marked the final game for Whiteley as head coach at St. Paul's. The 42-year-old is retiring after six memorable seasons that included two Maryland Scholastic Association championships and a 35-game winning streak.

"I've been able to work with a lot of great kids and I've really enjoyed getting to know them," said Whiteley, reflecting on the past six years. "You don't win in this league without good kids and that's what I'll look back on the most."

Senior attackman Jamie Pollock finished with with two goals for the fifth-ranked Crusaders, who entered the tournament as the No. 5 seed. Junior attackman Tucker Radebaugh added a goal and two assists for St. Paul's (8-6).

"We really wanted to win it for coach," said senior goalie Keenan, who finished with 20 saves. "We thought we could do it, but you have to give St. Mary's credit -- they came out real tough in the second half and won it."